𝐂𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄

Katherine stares at Mitch across the table, watching as he chews. Slowly, blue eyes so similar to her own scan across the wall before they meet hers.

"I'm not gonna disappear," he says around a mouthful of cereal.

"What?"

"You keep looking at me like I'm gonna disappear."

She didn't have the energy for a bitter remark, so she just looked away from him. But the more it sits at the forefront of her mind, the more she's about to explode.

"Do you remember Glen?" Katherine carefully asks.

Mitch frowns at her. "Yeah, I remember him. Why wouldn't I remember him?"

Katherine shrugs. "'Cause I don't."

Mitch hums. "I mean...your childhood was a lot more fucked up than mine." She scoffs, running her finger along the edge of the kitchen table. "It would make sense you don't remember some things."

"No, it's not like that." She shakes her head and crosses her arms. "I remember a lot of things, but I specifically do not remember him."

Mitch offers her a lame shrug. "I mean, we weren't around him a whole lot."

"Holidays, Mitchy," Katherine sighs.

"Holidays here," he reminds her. "Which you somehow thought was abandoned."

She holds a finger up. "Louise already told me this place is warded."

"Yeah, against people who don't like us," he mutters. "Not against our own family."

Katherine frowns a little. "People like who?"

Mitch offers her a lame shrug. "Not specific people. It's...it's an intention thing, how Grandma explained to me. If the intent to cause harm is there, then...it looks different."

She shakes her head. "I don't get it. How can a house know if there's intent to cause harm?"

Striking blue eyes meet hers, and all she sees is Glen in her brother's face. "Magic is alive, Katherine. It's...it's not this unchanging...inanimate object." He gestures vaguely with his hands. "It's a tangible thing. It's old and it's powerful...it's a feeling, a sense you just have."

She sighs. "You said a whole lot of words," she admits. "I kind of understand, though."

A feeling. Her eyes wander to the willow tree at the edge of the pond. It's directly centered in the window straight across from her.

"It's like..." He sits up straight. "You remember those plasma balls, from when we were kids? We would touch it, and the lightning in the ball would move to our hands, and it was kind of warm and buzzy?" Katherine nods. "Magic feels kind of like that."

"Buzzy," she muses, eyebrows raised high.

"It's energy," he says.

"Magic is buzzy and has a mind of its own."

Mitch shrugs. "Yeah, you could say that. I mean, it just goes back to nature, right? Everything in balance, so...it has to be intelligent."

"Giveth and taketh away," Katherine sighs, crossing her arms.

"You do get it," Mitch hums, and goes back to his cereal. "I just can't believe something hasn't manifested yet, if you were already able to cast spells and shit."

She bounces her knee and clicks her tongue. "You and me both."

Silence lapses over the two. She's taken to gazing out of the bay window behind the table again, at that huge willow tree. She's longing for it, oddly enough. Maybe it's the intrigue of it. The whole meditation and her newfound perspective on magic. Alive, tangible...buzzy.